In my dreams, I see a world so close to us that only the width of a hair separates the two. Yet they are so far apart that traveling the distance would take a thousand years. It is a world of constant night yet bathed in beauty and light from the ground and stones themselves. This world is warm and full of life despite no sun in the sky. It is a medieval world where science and magic are one.
In my dreams, I see six great nations in this world. These nations live together in peace for they have no desire to take each other’s land. The land from another nation means nothing to the other, therefore quarreling and greed were never given the opportunity to take root.
In my dreams, I see a beautiful domed temple made from stone as white as ivory. In this temple rests the six sacred weapons given to each of the nations as a gift from a goddess. She bestowed these gifts to prepare her people for the day of the Worm. The weapons are wielded by one from each nation; the one chosen by the goddess. In the center of the temple is a seventh altar, where the most revered items sit. It is the armor and weapons of the seventh son of a seventh son whose veins run with the blood of a god and whose coming was foretold will unite the realms in their darkest hour. The steel is blue and silver and the armor is as light as cotton. The weapons consist of a gauntlet and sword. The gauntlet serves as a shield and houses a disk that three blades emerge from and obeys the will of the thrower; it lays waste to its foes and returns to its master's hand every time. The sword was forged from the very essence of life and is the mortal enemy of rot and decay. It will never break, shatter, or become dull.In my dreams, I see the goddess blessing the six warriors from each of the nations before spiriting away the seventh set of armor and weapons from the walls of the sacred temple. She hides the items in a place far from the Worm’s reach where they will wait until claimed by its rightful owner. In a final act of sacrifice, I see the goddess exhausting the last of her immortality in order to open a door of light in which she places a tiny infant. She bids the child farewell and before closing the door she says with tears in her eyes, “Goodbye, my son.”
It is twenty minutes to midnight, the day of my fifteenth birthday. I sit on the floor and I am trembling with fear. But I don't tremble because I am afraid of the unknown or of things to come. I am not afraid of the hideous monsters and vicious creatures I will face. I don’t fear the violence I will encounter or battles I will fight. I am not afraid of the great responsibility that will come at being the savior of my people. None of that scares me. What really scares me, what truly grips my soul in an oppressive weight of fright and panic is one single thing. What I fear most is that tomorrow will come and go like any other ordinary day.